Tortoise Back After Long Trip - But It Can't Go Home Again

You might think the tale of the tortoise and the tourist has a sad ending, but look at it this way: At least Sarah the tortoise escaped New York.

A good-hearted New York tourist thought he was aiding the tortoise when he rescued it from the side of a Florida highway and took it home.

A New York veterinarian thought he, too, was helping the animal when he brought it back to Florida to return it to the wild.

But a skeptical state Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission disagreed, and sentenced the adult female turtle and her four hatchlings to life in captivity.

The tale began when a tourist from Buffalo, N.Y., saw the animal near a construction site along Interstate 95 near Daytona Beach. The corpses of tortoises that didn't escape the bulldozer dotted the area.

The man put the reptile in his car and headed home. But the tortoise, belonging to a species that lives no farther north than South Carolina, didn't take to life across the Mason-Dixon Line.

In New York, the reptile refused to eat and seemed restless. Worried, the tourist gave the animal to the Alden Veterinary Clinic in western New York state. He did not leave his name.

The veterinary staff, which cares for dozens of injured and abandoned wild animals, had never seen a reptile like it before. Clinic workers soon learned that they had a gopher tortoise. The animal is native to the Southeast and is a ''species of special concern,'' a few steps away from the endangered list.

An hour after the animal arrived, clinic workers learned why it had been restless: She began laying eggs. By summer's end, four of her eight eggs had hatched.

In mid-November, clinic veterinarian Ron Kondrich packed up the reptile family of five and drove to Orlando to visit relatives. He wanted to return the animals to the wild.

Carmen Shaw, an east Orange County wildlife rehabilitator, planned to help the vet find a spot to release the tortoises. But when game officials learned of her plans last week, they stopped her.

Commission officials objected to the release for two reasons, one biological, one political.

The tortoises may have picked up a disease or parasite in captivity. If they are released, that ailment could spread to other tortoises, said Don Wood, the commission's endangered species coordinator. Ill tortoises on Sanibel Island may have been infected by a captive animal that was released.

As for the politics of wild animal re-introductions, Wood said, the game commission did not want to see the tortoises' release painted as a ''good deed type thing.''

''It was illegal for the person to pick the tortoise up,'' said Wood. ''It was illegal for him to take it across state lines. It was illegal for him to possess it in New York. It was illegal for him to release it here. To characterize it as a good Samaritan type thing would be to condone all that illegal activity,'' he said.

For all these reasons, Sarah and her hatchlings must live in captivity for the rest of their lives - about half a century.

''It always hurts me when I can't do a release,'' said Shaw, the wildlife rehabilitator. ''Wild animals should be out there being free.''

Shaw will keep the animals indoors until warm weather returns and the adult can dig a burrow on Shaw's property. Beginning in January, the tortoises will be featured in educational programs for schoolchildren.

Meanwhile, Shaw reports that Sarah, who didn't New York, is adjusting to Shaw's Southern hospitality. ''She kind of wanders through the house and does her little tortoise thing.''